RMNB’s New #NatriolesMagictude T-Shirt is the Most Important, Most Stupid Thing We’ve Done Yet

September 29, 2014 10:45 am

Update: Shirts are still available. Get on it.

DMV sports fans are living high on the hog. The Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals have each won their divisions and are now poised for the postseason. The Orioles just finished their best season probably since 1997, and the Nats closed out the regular with a dramatic no-hitter for Jordan Zimmermann. It’s good times on both ball fields.

Yet there are those among us who say you must choose one team and hate the other. The fan police say no true fan can support both Washington and Baltimore at the same time. They say support for one team is betrayal of the other.

Nuts to that. Instead, you and I shall stand shoulder to shoulder, and we’ll don this nifty new RMNB t-shirt, and we shall say, NATRIOLES MAGICTUDE, ‘HON.

This shirt is an abomination.

But it’s necessary. The fan police, so eager to separate the fake fans from the pure-bloods, need a shirt like this– perchance it might blow their little minds.

As we step into October, the Orioles and the Nationals begin twin campaigns to conquer their respective leagues. But these conflicts are not between the two local teams, so rooting for one does not preclude the other. No one has to be a loser… yet. #NatriolesMagictude is the spirit of shared success– just so long as success for one team does not damn the other.

When you rock this shirt, you do not have to love both teams equally. Nationals fans should continue to be justifiably disgusted by Baltimore’s owner. Orioles fans should keep on being miffed by the triumphalism in Southeast DC. But nuanced criticism– or even a good-natured dig here or there– need not constitute hatred. The spirit of goodwill represented by #NatriolesMagictude shall permeate all discussion so long as you rock this lovely, not-at-all-batshit-crazy t-shirt.

We have so much in common: the magic touch of Davey Johnson, a multi-channel regional sports network that isn’t at all an internecine clustereff, and two teams in the throes of renaissance. Let’s enjoy it all together. With this shirt. Which, yes, is super weird.

But we really can all get along*. Let’s untuck for Buck. Let’s “ain’t the beer cold” for Bryce. Let’s let the wolf dwell with lamb and all the other stuff in Isaiah 11:6. For now, everyone’s teams are in the playoffs, so let’s have fun!